Signs and Wonders
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: Nightmare tag: In the aftermath of Max Miller, Sam looks for signs that Dean sees him differently. And wonders.


**Signs & Wonders**  
K Hanna Korossy

In the days after they left Michigan, Sam had looked fatalistically for the signs.

Dean had said he wasn't freaked out by the waking visions and prognostications and, oh, yeah, just a little bit of telekinesis. And Sam had wanted desperately to believe him. Too much was changing too fast, little certain ground left for him to stand on. If he lost Dean, too…

But they'd hunted the supernatural all their lives. In the Winchester vocabulary, it was almost synonymous with evil. Even the occasional good ones they'd come across, Missouri and Marie and others like them, Dean always treated with a little bit of wariness and disbelief. And Sam was supposed to believe the fact his brother was also turning out to be a real freak didn't faze Dean at all?

Life had never been that kind to Sam Winchester.

So he'd looked for the signs of inevitable change, and of it being time to give up everything he had left and take off. Because for all Sam expected to see those signs, the one thing he wouldn't have been able to bear seeing was open disgust in Dean's eyes.

He hadn't found what he'd expected, however.

There was still a knife under Dean's pillow when he slept, but it had been there as long as Sam could remember. And no heavier armament had joined it, nor was Dean making excuses to go to bed after Sam in order to keep a wary eye on him.

He was, however, staying up with his brother when Sam was having trouble sleeping.

_"Hey, you want some popcorn? C'mon, you can't watch the Creature Feature without popcorn." _

_"Dean, it's after midnight."_

_"What's your point?"_

_Sam shook his head. "The movie doesn't even end until two."_

_"And…?" One eyebrow rose. "You wanna go to bed?" Sam's expression answered as much. Dean shrugged and nudged Sam's shoulder. "We don't have to be anywhere tomorrow. Move over, man, you're hogging the bed." _

_"It's my bed," Sam had argued half-heartedly because Dean being close meant the fear wasn't. And, truth was, Sam didn't really want to argue at all. _

He kept walking into rooms and conversations and situations expecting Dean to be watching him, looking for more freaky behavior. Maybe flipping through his journal, or his cell phone, spying on him. He wouldn't have blamed Dean for it if he had.

But Sam was pretty sure he wasn't. Dean was good, but Sam had been raised with the same lessons. He _had_ caught Dean looking at him a few times, face serious and thoughtful. But there had never been any guardedness in his expression, only what he was pretty sure was worry.

_The day had been long and cold and fruitless. Sam tried not to let his despondency show as he slumped in the car, but it was almost a physical weight. _

_And Dean was watching him. _

_Sam didn't look over, just asked bitterly, "What?" Afraid of the answer._

_"Nothin'," came the bland response, but on the heels of it came an offer Sam could hear the smile in. "You want some hot chocolate?"_

_Despite himself, his mouth twitched as he turned back to Dean. "Hot chocolate? When did you last even have hot chocolate?"_

_Dean shrugged, undaunted. "Seems like the kind of day for it. Marshmallows, whipped cream—oh, yeah! So, you in?"_

_Sam felt some of the gloom lift as he shook his head helplessly and laughed. "Yeah, I'm in." _

The weapons Dean kept under lock and key in the Impala's trunk stayed that way, although he didn't hesitate to toss Sam the keys when it was time to get ready. The guns and blades he shoved into Sam's hands weren't any less lethal, either.

But in the past, where he would usually arm himself before passing gear on to Sam, Dean was making sure Sam was set before ducking back into the trunk for himself. And Sam couldn't help but wonder if that was meant to be a show of trust, or wanting to make sure Sam could protect himself. Because he was pretty sure Dean had always armed himself first so he could protect Sam.

_They were sweeping the house with extreme caution; a family had died there, and neither of them were about to add to the tally. Dean was upstairs with his EMF detector, and Sam held the rock salt-loaded shotgun in one hand as if he'd been born to it, which he practically had. _

_The floor creaked behind him just as a breeze touched his neck, and Sam swung around, finger tightening on the trigger._

_To see Dean standing there, arms slightly upraised in surrender. "Jumpy much?"_

_"No, I find people-eating houses very relaxing," Sam answered with dry irritation, the shotgun already aimed at the floor. _

_Dean just threw him a maddeningly amused grin, and tossed over his shoulder as he walked out, "I'll be sure to whistle next time."_

"_Yeah, you do that," Sam muttered after him. He hadn't missed how, despite Dr. Ellicott and Max and a lot of other reasons why not, there hadn't been a tick of surprise in Dean's eyes at being greeted that way. But neither had there been fear. _

The teasing and putdowns hadn't slowed, anyway. In fact, they'd gotten a little more fast and furious, as if Dean knew how badly Sam needed the normalcy. Or maybe he was just trying harder, because the barbs were often followed by thoughtful silence and glances Sam wasn't sure how to read.

But there were also casually tossed-off lines of encouragement, hands on his shoulder or back, and those Sam understood loud and clear.

_"Definitely the DeLorean." _

_"You're kidding."_

_"Dude, you could go back in time with that thing! How cool is that?"_

_He didn't question for a second why Dean would want to go back in time. "Yeah, okay, I guess." _

_"So? What about you? Any fantasy car." _

_"KITT."_

_"Knight Rider? Oh, man, that is so lame." _

_"Hey, that car could survive anything, outrun everything, and it even took you places while you were asleep."_

_"So… that's different from now, how?"_

_He rolled his eyes, not wanting to admit Dean sort of had a point. _

_His shoulder was patted consolingly. "Don't worry, Sammy, I'll loan you my DeLorean."_

Not what he expected at all.

And slowly, ever so slowly, Sam began to believe that nothing really had changed. Maybe Dean was okay with having a freak brother, like he'd been claiming all along, and they could just keep going.

Maybe. And maybe the signs were there and he was just missing them, because_something_ felt different besides him.

"You find it yet?" Dean called from outside, probably still leaning impatiently against the Impala as he waited for Sam.

Sam kept looking, fanning through the pile of papers on the bureau, the slip with the address of the witness they needed to talk to nowhere to be found. He pulled open the drawers, glancing through them, then dropped to look under the furniture. No luck. His bag had also been come up empty.

Heaving an impatient sigh of his own, Sam grabbed his brother's duffel and felt around inside it. The crinkle of paper made him peer inside, then pull out a sheaf. Photocopies, it looked like, and Sam was about to stick them back when the title of the topmost one caught his eye:_Case Studies of Documented Telekinetic Phenomenon._

His blood ran cold.

Sam flipped to the next one in the stack. Another journal article:_Precognition and Dreams. _The next was a newspaper article: _Woman Dreams Family Will Die; Accident Happens Next Day. _The rest of the pile was more of the same.

With trembling fingers, Sam reached into his brother's duffel again, feeling along the bottom, pulling out the two books he encountered. One was simply called _Precognition,_ the other, _Dreams and Visions. _Library books, expired more than two weeks and probably never to be returned, stamped Burlington, CO. Sam remembered the name faintly, although he'd hardly left the motel the few days there while he recuperated from the poltergeist attack in their old house.

So much for Dean being unfazed.

He'd never claimed he wasn't worried, though. They would have both known what a lie that was, and Sam wouldn't have asked that of him, anyway. It had been a long time since he'd really thought his older brother could fix everything.

But it just wouldn't stop him from trying.

"Sam! You fall asleep in there?"

"I'm coming," he yelled back in an almost faltering voice, pushing the books to the bottom of the duffel, followed by the dog-eared, highlighted papers. Signs, not of what he'd been looking for, but no less meaningful. Sam knew well Dean didn't waste time on lost causes and things he didn't believe in.

Heart pounding, he stood in the middle of the room and looked around, his mind everywhere but on the piece of paper he was searching for. Things had changed, but not in the way he'd thought. The late nights, the bad jokes, the looks—it wasn't fear; it was concern. Fighting for him.

Love.

Not everything had changed.

"Sam?"

He wheeled at Dean's suddenly close voice, seeing his brother standing in the doorway.

Even as Sam stumbled for words, Dean held up a folded slip, expression chagrined. "Never mind—found it in the car."

His brilliant response: "Oh."

Dean nodded out the door. "Come on."

He waited there for Sam to join him, and they walked to the car side by side, a hand brushing Sam's elbow as his brother veered to go around to the driver's side.

Sam stood by his own door even though it was unlocked, fingers curled around the handle, watching him. Oddly comforted by the fact Dean was as freaked out about this as he was, but _for_ Sam, not by him. They'd always been able to face the unknown together.

He smiled.

Dean caught the look just as he was about to get in, and froze, suspicious. "What?"

Sam shook his head, kept smiling.

Dean's mouth was also pulling upward, the mood especially infectious after the week they'd had. "C'mon, Sam, what?"

"Nothing," he said with a cheerful shrug, and climbed into the car.

Dean followed more slowly, still giving him strange looks even though he was clearly liking Sam's mood. "Is it the paper? I left it in here last night, I forgot."

Sam shook his head placidly.

Dean frowned, started the car. And then they left together, Dean's voice trailing behind them on the spring air.

"What?!"

**The End**


End file.
